The development of reflexive and voluntary shifts of visual attention, as well as relations between the two forms of shifting was examined in three groups of children (5-, 7-, and 9-years-old), one group of young adults (24-years-old), and two groups of senior adults (young seniors: 69-years-old, old seniors: 81-years-old). The task entailed the detection and response to the presentation of a target (black dot) in one of four possible locations in the visual field. The dependent measure was reaction time (RT). The extent to which flash cues facilitated or inhibited reflexive orienting was determined through presentation of nonpredictive abrupt onset peripheral flash cues prior to the target. Arrow facilitation and inhibition was measured by shifts of attention initiated in response to predictive central arrow cues. Relations between reflexive and voluntary shifts of attention were gauged by the degree to which flash and arrow facilitation and inhibition were observed in response to the presentation of both arrow and flash cues together in one trial. Conditions varied with regard to the validity of the location cues (accurate or inaccurate information regarding the location of the subsequent target) and the length of the interval between the cue and the target (SOA: 185 or 875 ms). All age groups demonstrated flash facilitation with the flash cue alone, demonstrating similar patterns of reflexive orienting across the lifespan. However, the three groups of children demonstrated the largest flash cue effects suggesting that they had the most difficulty ignoring the nonpredictive flash cues. With the arrow cue alone, young adults, and young and old senior adults were more efficient (faster RTs) in their execution of voluntary shifts, however, all age groups utilized the arrow cues to orient attention strategically and in doing so experienced similar patterns of arrow facilitation. When both flash and arrow cues were presented together, the 9-year-old children, young
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.38512 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Randolph, Beth |
| Contributors | Burack, Jacob A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001956025, proquestno: NQ85734, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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